


Precipice

by CaptainLeBubbles



Series: Perry T Platypus [2]
Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: Absolute Refusal To Acknowledge Feelings, Across the 2nd Dimension, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Denial of Feelings, Human Perry the Platypus (Phineas and Ferb), M/M, Pining, Wanton Abuse of the Fourth Wall, denial of pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-23 15:23:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18552478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainLeBubbles/pseuds/CaptainLeBubbles
Summary: Sometimes Perry feels like he's on a tightrope, tapdancing on the thin line that exists between where Uncle Perry ends and Agent P begins, and ever threatening to slip.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> This took far longer to write than I wanted it to.
> 
> So, very important note: this is the Perry T iteration of 2nd Dimension, which means it is _not the same story_. It hits most of the same beats and there's a few lines lifted here and there, and anything that happens off-screen you can imagine as happening as same or different as you like, but ultimately this is a very different 2nd Dimension adventure than the one our canon lot went through. Mostly because Perry being human drastically changes elements of both dimensions, but also because if I'm going to sit down and write ~17k of a story it's going to be a brand new story and not just copy-pasting all the scenes with lines change to accommodate him being a human.
> 
> (There are also plot-related reasons I had to change certain things and those changes snowballed, but mostly it's the "I'm not copy-pasting" thing.)

-/-

Perry dodged the punch to his head and snarled up at his assailant.

“Can’t believe any version of me would go rogue.”

“You let the boys help your Heinz build an interdimensional portal rather than blow your cover.” The other Perry grunted as a knee connected with his stomach, unable to stop Perry rolling them, pinning him down in turn. He smirked. “Face it, you’d ‘ave done the same in my place.”

-/-

It started midway through the summer, sometime just a little beyond the halfway point between the end of one school year and the beginning of the next.

Perry woke up happy that morning, which was probably a good warning that everything was going to go horribly, irretrievably wrong, and something was going to happen to completely alter his entire perception of the world, but honestly at the time he was just glad that he hadn’t been dragged out of bed by his watch going off before the day even properly began, as had been his wont of late.

(He was going to kill Monogram one of these days. His ‘circle Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated until something happens’ plan might be more efficient, but it was exhausting, and it cut into the time he spent with his kids. He valued his mornings with them. And then there were all the early starts Heinz had been getting in lately. Being able to eat breakfast with his family was something he hadn’t gotten a chance to do much lately.)

No sooner had he sat down than a plate stacked high with waffles was placed in front of him, and the boys pounced.

“Happy anniversary, Uncle Perry!” Phineas said, raising his arms to be lifted into a hug (which Perry, naturally, obliged).

“Anniversary?”

“It’s the anniversary of the day you came to live with us!” Phineas chirped, while Ferb climbed up to occupy Perry’s opposite side, tucking himself under Perry’s arm with a content hum.

“Oh, right!” Perry let go of Phineas and slapped his forehead. “How could I forget?”

“That’s okay, Uncle Perry, Ferb keeps close track of dates, we wouldn’t let you miss it.”

“The waffles were my idea,” Candace said, coming up to join them.

Perry chittered and swapped Phineas over to the other side with Ferb, raising his arm so he could pull Candace into his embrace as well. “It was a wonderful idea, I love it.”

(Sometimes Perry joked that his arms were big so he could hug all three of his kids at once.)

The waffles were far too many for one person to eat, so the kids settled around him to help him eat them. Inevitably, the topic swapped to Perry’s arrival to their home, five long years ago.

“Remember how I always thought you were up to something?” Candace laughed, spearing a frozen strawberry before Ferb could. “You kept saying I was smart, though.”

“Properly tempered, suspicion can be a good tool.”

“Remember the opera singing robot we built to welcome you?” Phineas added.

“Whatever happened to that thing, anyway?” Perry asked.

“Same thing that always happens to their crazy contraptions,” Candace said. “It ~disappeared~.”

She waggled her hands in jazz hands formation; Perry used the break in her defenses to dab syrup onto her nose with a wheezy snicker.

“Hey!”

Perry grinned, then reached into his shirt and took out the locket he wore. It had been a gift from the kids his first Christmas with them; it was shaped like a platypus foot, and opened into three panels. He opened it now, revealing the photos: one little picture of each kid. He chittered.

“And then you gave me this and I knew I was doomed.”

“Aww, look how little we were~”

-/-

Perry was going to kill Monogram one of these days.

Okay, so it wasn’t exactly like he could get out of work. And honestly, if today was his anniversary with the kids that meant it was his anniversary with Heinz too, so he wouldn’t have feasibly been able to get out of today’s mission even if he’d known ahead of time to ask. Heinz would probably have some special scheme planned to celebrate, or some trap to mark the occasion, or  _ something _ .

But  _ still _ . The kids had built a platypult to play cross-town badminton. (One day he was going to find out why everyone insisted on making everything centered on him platypus themed. They didn’t make things about Phineas swashbuckle themed, or things about Ferb archery themed, after all.) He’d been hoping to get in at least one round before he had to disappear on them.

(He couldn’t even offer an excuse, because ‘my word count beckons’ just plain didn’t work when he’d said he would spend some time with them. He just had to peace out when they weren’t looking and hope they didn’t miss him too much.)

And then he’d wrecked his new rocket car, which was putting him even longer leaving the kids, not to mention who knew what Heinz would do if Perry took too long to get to him. True, he was generally willing to put things off until Perry arrived, but that was when Perry was late within reason. If he waited too long, Heinz would assume he was a no-show and set off his inator out of spite.

Perry burst through the door in a roll, and then froze. His kids were there- working with Heinz, helping him put his inator together, oh god, it was literally one of his worst nightmares and it was right there in front of him-

Phineas turned at the sound, and lit up.

“Uncle Perry!” he and Ferb hurried over, hugging him happily. “Where’d you go?”

“Had to take a call,” he said weakly, keeping one eye on Heinz.

“Perry?” Heinz asked, folding his arms and come over to join them. He squinted at Perry.

“He’s our uncle!” Phineas said.

“Huh. Is every Australian named Perry?”

“In my experience,” Phineas shrugged.

“Hmm… You look familiar. Have we met?” Heinz squinted again, while Perry tried to calm the rising urgency in his middle. It would be fine. Heinz was almost comically faceblind, there was no worry just yet. Suddenly Heinz snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it!”

Oh god. Perry bit back a panicked chitter- that would be a giveaway if nothing else would.

“You’re the guy who wrote my favorite book!”

_ What _ .

Heinz hurried over to his bookshelf and took down- yup, that sure was a copy of  _ Ocelot, Under Covers _ . He held it up so they could see the little author’s portrait on the back cover. It was small and blurry and black and white, but somehow the man who couldn’t recognize Perry right in front of him without his hat could place him from a small grainy photo on the back of a cheaply-printed dirty novel. Sure, why not.

“See? That’s you, right? I’d know you anywhere!”

“Look at that, Uncle Perry, you’ve got a fan!” Phineas cheered. “I knew your book couldn’t be as bad as Candace said.”

“Oh no, it’s terrible,” Heinz said, rejoining them. “No offense. Do you mind signing it?”

Perry felt like the world was falling out from under him. Reality was slipping through his fingers like- like something that slips through fingers. Sand, buttons, noodles. His brain wasn’t really in a good place to work out metaphors, or even whether that was a metaphor or a simile.

He took the offered pen on autopilot and only just caught himself in time to not use his real signature.

“Thanks!” Heinz grinned and set the book aside. “Oh, we should get back to it, you two- help yourself to some of the food while we work, Uncle Perry-” (Okay, that was weird.) “-I was expecting someone but it looks like he’s not going to show. How do you like that? It’s our anniversary, you know. I bet he forgot.”

Perry tuned him out while he and the boys got back to work, and began looking for a way to stop Heinz without being Agent P. Why were the boys here? He’d worked so hard to make sure they’d never meet Heinz; they’d find too much common ground with another mad inventor and there would be no way to keep them apart after that. The risk to his secret identity was not worth it.

He opened his mouth to suggest to the boys that they leave, and then froze. He couldn’t even use his voice here- as far as  _ they _ knew, Heinz was a stranger, not someone he trusted with that part of himself as much as he did them.

_ Shit _ .

All right, Agent P, enough panicking. He was OWCA’s best agent, he’d saved the world more times than he could count. He had an absurdly low bodycount for someone so high ranking; he was  _ good _ at improvising. Wasn’t that why they’d assigned him to Heinz? Because he could improvise? So improvise!

“What’s up, Uncle Perry?” Phineas asked, when Perry interrupted them with a tap on his shoulder.

Perry jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, and flicked a worried glance at the machine.

“What do you mean it’s not safe?” Heinz said, lowering Ferb a bit. “I will have you know that my machine is perfectly safe! You know, now that your boys convinced me to take out the self-destruct button.”

They  _ convinced him to get rid of the self destruct button?! _

“Wait, Dr. D, you can understand him?” Phineas looked between them, surprised.

“Of course I can understand him, he’s being pretty plain.”

“Man.” Phineas looked over at Perry. “He likes your writing, he’s a scientist,  _ and _ he can understand you? You guys should date, he’s practically your dream guy.”

Perry smacked his forehead. Nope. Not having this conversation. He pointed in the direction of the park, and jerked his head toward the door. Come on, boys, just get on board-

“But I really wanna see what it does!” Phineas protested. “Just five more minutes? We’ll get back to our game once we’re done.”

“We’ll get things done quicker if you leave us alone,” Heinz pointed out. He set Ferb down and picked up what was, to Perry’s trained eye, the last piece of the inator. “One last touch. Hey Phineas, you want to do the honors?”

“Yeah!” Phineas hurried over and lifted his arms so Heinz could raise him up, and then stopped and spun at the sound of a crash. “Uncle Perry, are you okay?”

Both boys rushed over to the table, where Perry had “tripped” and knocked some of the food to the floor. They helped him sit up; he shook his head, feigning being dazed.

“You should be more careful, Uncle Perry,” Phineas said. “Are you hurt?”

Unfortunately, no. He shook his head.

“Okay. I’m gonna go help Dr. D finish the inator now- this is so exciting~!”

He hurried over, and Perry looked on in horror as Heinz lifted him up so he could attach the last piece of the portal.

_ Shit _ .

-/-

Today was in the hamper. Perry clung to the boys, looking for any excuse to flee that he could find, and wished he could just tell them that it was time to go- but he couldn’t just leave Heinz, no matter how annoyed he was with his nemesis right now.

The ride spit them out in a room that looked exactly like Perry would expect Heinz’s evil overlord office to look, featuring what he could only assume was this dimension’s Heinz Doofenshmirtz. The two Doofenshmirtzes looked over at them.

“Great, what now-”

“It’s cool, they’re with me,” his Heinz assured him. “They helped me build the portal.”

He pulled his counterpart over to introduce them, but the other Doofenshmirtz pulled away and gestured at Perry.

“You said Perry the Platypus was still your nemesis! Why did you bring him  _ with _ you?”

“Perry the Platypus? What?” Heinz looked over at them. “Those two boys? Wait, Perry the Platypus is two toddlers in a trenchcoat?”

“Hey! We’re between eight and ten years old!”

“Seriously?” The other Doofenshmirtz gestured at Heinz and looked at Perry. “Seriously? This is what you have to put up with?”

Perry shrugged.

“Oh for- okay, do you see that man? The one with the teal hair? And the bill-like nose? And the waistcoat and the platypus-tail tie? The one that looks  _ identical _ to Perry the Platypus?”

Heinz looked over at him. “Uncle Perry the Australian?”

(Seriously, that was getting really weird.)

“Un- okay. Okay.” The other Doofenshmirtz took a steadying breath. He waved down a giant floating robot with- for some reason- Norm’s head. “Okay. You. See that man over there? Get him.”

There was no way he could defend himself against a giant robot with his boys right there. Perry shifted his stance, almost minutely, so that he rolled (mostly) harmlessly into the punch, skidding back to stop against the wall. He wheezed. Okay. Only a  _ little _ harmlessly, but mostly very… very harmfully.

“Hey, what was that about?” Phineas and Ferb hurried over to him, Ferb supporting him as he sat up and Phineas checking him for any injuries.

“Told you,” Heinz said, giving his counterpart a smug look.

“Hmmm…” The other Doofenshmirtz looked from Perry to the boys, then turned and gave a furtive look at a lift in the corner. “Okay, do the same thing, but to those two boys instead. Quickly!”

This time the robot went flying into the nearest wall from the force of Perry’s kick. Perry crouched in front of the boys and snarled a warning at the other Dr. Doofenshmirtz.

“Uncle Perry?”

“Wow, kids, your uncle kicks  _ butt _ .”

Perry sighed. Oh well, his cover was blown anyway. He put his hat on, and-

“Perry the Platypus?!”

-yeah. Why not.

“You know I’m starting to see why you haven’t taken over your Tri-State Area yet,” the other Doofenshmirtz said.

In the corner, the robot rose from the rubble and made to rush them again. The other Doofenshmirtz waved him away.

“Stop, stop! I’ve made my point, stand down! Okay, we’re good. You can relax, Perry the Platypus, I’m not going to hurt your boys. Trust me, if I hurt any version of them I’m sleeping in the doghouse for like, a decade. Come on, unclench over there, Agent P, there you go.”

Perry relaxed slowly out of his ready stance, still keeping one fist raised, watching the other Doofenshmirtz warily while trying to keep half an eye on the various robots in the room as well. He reached behind him with his free hand to move the boys behind him a bit more, and met resistance.

He looked down. Phineas was staring up at him, wide eyed, frozen in place.

“Agent P?” he said. “You’re… you’re a secret agent?”

Perry chittered. Now wasn’t the time to have this conversation, not surrounded by death Norms and an even more evil Heinz Doofenshmirtz and whatever was coming down the lift.

“I can’t believe it! All this time!  _ All this time _ !” Phineas, apparently, disagreed. “You’ve been lying to us! Since the first day, I bet! Are you even our uncle?”

It had been Phineas who started calling him that to begin with. Perry pointed at him with a chitter, hoping the reminder would calm him down.

Phineas just glared harder. His lip wobbled, and he jabbed a finger at Perry. “Well I’m starting to regret that! Come on Ferb, let’s go.”

The two boys hurried away at a run, leaving Perry staring after them.

He was going to follow them- was about to follow them- when the lift finished descending and the unmistakable other version of himself stepped out.

He was wearing more black than Perry did, and carrying a tray.

“Tea, love?” he said.

“Ah, Schatz, excellent timing!” The other Doofenshmirtz turned to him with a grin.

The other Perry acknowledged him with a nod, and looked around the room. Perry recognized that look- he’d been wearing it approximately ten minutes ago. This Perry gave a soft chitter, and stepped back into the lift. It began rising again.

“All right, see you later, I g-“

“ _ Schatz _ ?!”

Oh. Look at that. More to unpack.

Suddenly arguing with his boys sounded a lot more pleasant than being here. Perry turned and took off after them.

-/-

Perry caught up with the boys at the base of the building. He caught their shoulders to stop them, turning them around and giving them a pleading look.

“Are you serious?” Phineas said. “I can’t believe you! What else have you been lying to us about? Wait, is this why you live with us?”

Perry winced, and nodded.

Phineas threw his hands up. He looked at Ferb, gestured at Perry. “Can you believe this?”

Ferb nodded.

“Well  _ I _ can’t!” He shot his glare back at Perry. “Were you ever even a part of our family? Do we even mean anything to you? Or was that a lie too?”

“Phin- no-“ Perry raised his hands in reassurance. “No, you mean  _ everything _ to me.”

“Well apparently that’s not very much, if you don’t even trust us with something like this.”

Perry groaned. There had to be a way to make them understand. Some kind of literature that would put the explanation in a short, succinct way, a way specifically designed to-

-oh right, pamphlet. He handed it over.

“So someone you love is a secret agent- a pamphlet? That’s it?!” He tossed it aside. “Ugh! Let’s just go home.”

Ferb nodded, and handed him a remote device- a portable portal device? Oh, his boys were so  _ smart _ .

When he activated it, though, the dimension on the other side was not theirs. Phineas huffed and smacked it, trying and failing repeatedly to get it to open to their dimension. Finally he gave up.

“And now this!”

He made to throw the remote in frustration, but Perry slipped it from his fingers before he could. He inspected it. It looked to be in working order.

“Heinz could probably figure out what was going on with it,” he murmured.

“Heinz?” Phineas repeated, and Perry could feel a headache forming. “You mean Dr. D? Wait, you know him? You’re on  _ first name terms _ with him? Is that something else you’ve been lying to us about?”

“Long story, bud,” Perry said. He pinched the bridge of his nose. He really didn’t think now was a good time to explain the concept of long-term nemeses to them. “All right, priorities. We need to get you two home. We can talk this whole thing through later.”

Phineas still looked mutinous, but he nodded, once, short and sharp. Ferb rested his hands over his brother’s shoulders and mirrored the gesture. All right, task at hand. Okay.

“I don’t know what’s going one with the portal remote but the other portal we left should still be open, right?”

“Should be,” Phineas said. “We never set any kind of timer on it.”

“All right then. You two are gonna go back through the portal and go home, then.”

“What about you? I mean, I’m mad at you, but I’m not just going to leave you stranded.”

Perry shook his head. “I can’t leave without Heinz. Need to get him away from the other guy anyway.”

“Yeah, he seems a little bit… uh…”

“Evil,” Ferb supplied.

“I was gonna say unhinged and a little dangerous, but evil works too.”

Perry nodded. “All right. Let’s get you two home, then.” He turned them and ushered them to the door. He’d deal with everything else once they were home; his priorities at the moment were the safety of his kids.

-/-

The trip up through the building back to where they left the portal was agonizing. Perry could feel the boys’ judging looks on the back of his neck every time he took a corner or passage with the degree of familiarity that could only come from being in this building every day.

When they reached the top floor and Perry decided to test his key, that was the last straw, apparently.

“Seriously?!” Phineas burst out. “You have a  _ key _ ?!”

He nodded, checking around them and peering into the room. Okay. Okay, all clear. He waved them in and pulled the door closed behind him.

Monogram was still over in his little stand. Perry glanced at the boys, and came over to him.

He raised an eyebrow at this Monogram, gesturing at his outfit and station in clarification.

Monogram huffed. “What do you think? You- that is- the you in  _ this _ reality- went rogue. With you working with Dr. Doofenshmirtz, the end was guaranteed in Doof’s favor.”

Perry chittered a hiss. Hard to believe any version of him would go rogue.

“That’s what  _ I _ said,” Monogram agreed. “Well, not literally, though I kind of wanted to. It’s not so bad, actually. I mean, there’s a giant robot army and the infrastructure has been rebuilt to accommodate Doof’s tastes, but, you know, apart from that, it hasn’t been so bad.”

Perry snorted. ‘Not so bad’, sure.

“Hey Perry,” Phineas called, and Perry didn’t miss the conspicuous absence of an ‘Uncle’ in there. “The portal is gone.”

Perry chittered, and hurried back over to them. They’d left the portal  _ right here _ \- right next to the couch- he looked around, wondering if maybe it had moved, but nothing. He went back over to Monogram and pointed at where the portal had been.

“That?” Monogram said. “One of the Norms came and got it about ten minutes ago.” His gaze flicked between them. “Was- was it important?”

Perry chittered, and punched the wall in frustration. Okay, Agent P,  _ improvise _ . Okay.

He looked around him. They were in what in their reality was Heinz’s lab, but in this reality seemed to be more of a reception area of sorts. There was no option to rebuild the portal, not here- though there was more than one place in Danville he knew of that would have the relevant materials. He eyed Monogram thoughtfully. If he was here, that didn’t give him much hope for OWCA, so…

He turned back to the boys. “Come on,” he said. “Maybe the yous in this dimension will help us.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” he overheard Monogram say, as he shut the door behind them.

Outside in the hall, the boys exchanged a look, and then stopped short.

“We want answers,” Phineas said. “Before we go any farther.”

“And I’ll give them to you,” Perry said. “But don’t you think the building owned by an evil dictator might not be the best place?” When they hesitated, he added, “Let’s go find the you in this dimension and get their help. I’ll fill you in once we’re there.”

Another look passed between them. Perry recognized the silent discussion happening between them, and hoped it came out in his favor.

“All right,” Phineas finally said. “But we’re getting our answers.”

“Agreed. Now let’s  _ go _ .”

-/-

How they managed to get all the way to the house without drawing the attention of the death Norms was beyond Perry’s ability to remember. He felt himself slipping into Agent P as they ran, letting the cold pragmatism of his training take over the panicking family man he’d become since settling in Danville. Uncle Perry was in a state; he was frantic, and making bad choices, rookie mistakes. 

Agent P, on the other hand, had a mission: protect the boys, get all of them home, close up the portal, ensure that Heinz would never build one again. He had a vague thought of overthrowing the other Dr. Doofenshmirtz in the process, but that was a bonus, and not a priority. This was their problem, over here in this dimension. He could only worry about the problems of his own.

He could already tell something was wrong when they reached the house. It was dark, boarded up. Agent P chittered, and put a hand out to stop the boys before they ran out of their cover. Why was the house boarded up?

_ Of course _ . This universe’s Perry- if he’d gone rogue, who knew what had happened to his family.

He motioned at the boys to stay put and slipped out of cover, running low across the lawn. Maybe one of his counterpart’s lair entrances was still here, maybe he could use some of the equipment-

-he was halfway across the yard when a firm weight collided with him. He rolled, throwing his assailant aside before he’d even registered what was happening, and reached out to catch the fist that swung toward him in the follow up. He tried to get a look at his opponent in the beat, to gauge what he was fighting, but they were dressed head to toe in black clothing and rag-tag armor, and he didn’t have time to judge beyond that before his feet were kicked out from under him.

His black-clad opponent was a good fighter: Perry struggled to keep the upper hand, unable to pin them or keep them back.

And then they swung their legs around in a kick that he  _ recognized _ , that he  _ knew _ because he’d  _ invented _ that move, and suddenly he knew who he was fighting. He froze, enough that the second kick (always two kicks) connected and sent him skidding back on the damp grass. A bo was pulled from his assailant’s belt and the end pressed against his chest.

He chittered. Clamped down hard on Agent P, and let Uncle Perry take over.

“ _ Candace? _ ”

“Where are my brothers?” hissed the assailant, and yes, oh yes, that was Candace- the Candace of this dimension but unmistakably her.

“Candace, my love, I need you to-.”

“ _ Don’t call me that _ .” The end of the bo was pressed harder into his sternum. He froze. Held his hands in an approximation of up. “Now  _ where _ are my  _ brothers _ ? I won’t ask you again!”

“Candace!” Both looked over as the boys left the cover and hurried to join them. “Candace, is that really  _ you _ ?”

“Phineas! Ferb!” She collapsed the bo and held out her arms, scooping both of them up as they came to her. “Oh, it’s so good to  _ see _ you!”

Perry breathed a sigh of relief and sat up with a hopeful chitter. Candace turned back to him, somehow managing to convey absolute loathing and anger despite her face being completely covered.

“ _ You _ ,” she hissed, but Phineas and Ferb grabbed her hands.

“Candace, wait, it’s not whatever you’re thinking. We’re from another dimension, we’re not your brothers and that’s not your Perry.”

“What?” She looked between them. Took her sunglasses off and looked closer.

(There was a hard look to her eye, steel where once there had been anxiety and joy in equal parts. Perry repressed a shudder. How had the him in this dimension allowed his kids to get into this situation?)

“All right, so you’re not  _ my _ brothers. But that doesn’t mean I’m trusting  _ him _ . How do you know your Perry isn’t just as evil as mine?”

Phineas made to reply, then hesitated. The boys looked to each other and had another of those silent conversations. As one they looked over at Perry, and then back to each other.

He could see the moment they came to an agreement. Phineas turned back to Candace.

“We don’t,” he admitted. “But I need to believe  _ something _ he told us wasn’t a lie.”

She looked between them, from her adjacent brothers to Perry, who was rapidly slipping back into Agent P in sheer emotional self-defense, and sighed.

“All right. If you vouch for him-” She broke off, and looked up as one of the death Norms drifted by at the end of the street. She yanked both of them down before it could see her, and only once it had moved on for several minutes did she let them back up. She gave a furtive look around. “Come on, we’ll talk back at base. It’s not safe here.” She shot Perry a glare. “And if you  _ try _ anything, you’re going  _ down _ .”

Perry nodded. Made a heart-crossing motion that seemed to hit Candace somewhere behind the eyes; for a moment she looked like little more than a scared, broken teenager, and then she put her sunglasses on and was back to being the stone-cold resistance fighter who’d attacked him moments before.

-/-

Perry was somehow not surprised that they ended up down in his lair. The place looked very different than he knew it; he couldn’t be sure how much of that was down to the different dimension and what was because it had been repurposed, but he did spot some leftover platypus-themed gear tucked away in the outskirts of the room.

Part of him couldn’t resist a smirk. Some things were universal, it seemed.

“What happened, Candace?” Phineas asked, once they were down in the lair. “And what do you mean about Perry being evil?”

“I  _ mean _ , he’s  _ evil _ . I don’t know about your dimension, but in  _ ours _ , he and his  _ boyfriend _ decided to take over the Tri-State Area and now they rule with an iron fist.”

Boyfriend? Perry pinched the bridge of his nose with an exasperated chitter.

( _ Schatz _ , he’d said.)

Nope, not unpacking that.

“He also took away my family,” Candace went on. “I was lucky to escape the Norm army that day.” She took off her sunglasses, and the scared, broken teenager was back. “I was the only one who did.”

-/-


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perry's having a really bad day.

-/-

Someone was growling. Perry realized it was him, and stopped, but that didn’t stop the way his shoulders tightened or keep his fists from clenching at his side.

Candace was eyeing him thoughtfully. “Maybe you aren’t evil.”

“Tell me everything,” he managed to spit out, after a few long moments of trying to contain the rage boiling under his skin.

Candace studied him for a moment longer, then nodded.

“It started about a year ago,” she began-

-/-

_ It was like this: one day last summer, Phineas and Ferb- the Phineas and Ferb of this dimension- were in the backyard discussing their plans for the day. A giant snowcone machine, or the world’s smallest violin, or maybe locating Frankenstein’s brain- Candace couldn’t remember, and didn’t care. It didn’t matter. _

_ (At the time, it had mattered so much.) _

_ Halfway through their planning, Uncle Perry had barrelled out into the yard and grabbed both of them, and then vanished. Candace had realized later that he’d used OWCA tunnels to get away, but at the time all she knew was that her uncle- her beloved, wonderful, doting,  _ **_trusted_ ** _ uncle- had taken her brothers. _

_ The next day, the Norm army had attacked. They’d held the Tri-State Area hostage until complete control had been handed over to Dr. Doofenshmirtz- _

_ -and Perry. _

_ Candace had broken her story off there, taking a long interlude to rant about how she should have  _ **_known_ ** _ , should have  _ **_realized_ ** _ , because he’d always acted suspiciously but he was so  _ **_good_ ** _ to her and she’d  _ **_loved_ ** _ him and she’d  _ **_thought_ ** _ he loved  _ **_them-_ **

_ It was Agent P who told Candace to keep talking. Uncle Perry just wanted to hold his girl close and make promises he could never keep. _

_ Doofenshmirtz had barely been in command long enough to warm his new seat of power when the Norms came after the remaining Flynn-Fletchers. Linda and Lawrence had been discussing how best to get their sons back when the bots had appeared- they’d fought. Of course they’d fought. Their children were at stake. _

_ Candace had fled, and in the process had fallen into the hidden lair. That was where one of the remaining OWCA agents found her later. _

_ (One of the first things Perry had done on taking over was disband OWCA. Perry had, grudgingly, had to admit that it was a smart move. OWCA were almost comically bound by their absurd rules. If OWCA were illegal, OWCA would disband for that alone. But not all agents were willing to follow those laws. _

_ On the other hand, some of the OWCA agents had openly defected to serve under the new regime. Perry wanted to demand their names, but stopped himself. He didn’t need to have his relationship with his colleagues tainted by this dimension’s versions of them and their actions.) _

_ She’d joined the resistance that day, and in no time had become the leader of the whole thing, her sense of betrayal driving her the way only the remaining OWCA agents could come close to understanding. Her stated goal was busting Doofenshmirtz and Perry, putting an end to their reign and hopefully rescuing her family. _

-/-

“-The past year has been hard,” Candace finished. She looked over at Perry. He’d been pacing for the past few paragraphs, wracking his brain for any explanation of what could have led his counterpart to defect. It went against everything he knew about himself, or thought he knew.

And even if he was going to defect, why take the boys?

It didn’t make  _ sense _ .

Speaking of the boys, they were staring him down now. He slowed his pacing and returned their gaze.

“Your turn,” Phineas said.

Oh. Right. He’d promised them answers, hadn’t he?

“What do you want to know?”

“You’re a secret agent,” Phineas repeated, to a nod. “Why didn’t you  _ tell _ us? Did it never occur to you that we could  _ help _ you?”

That was the crux of what was bothering Phineas, really: that he had been lied to. Perry sighed.

“Secret means secret, bud. Even from family.”

“But if you can’t trust  _ us _ , who  _ can _ you trust?”

Perry pinched his nose, not quite sure how to explain. Ferb raised his hand slightly.

“Dr. Doofenshmirtz.”

Well, yes, but- oh, that was a question. “He’s my nemesis.”

“Not in this universe,” Candace muttered.

Perry held up a finger to silence her. He was  _ not _ unpacking that. He had enough to deal with today as it was.

“Then why did you let us help him? Why didn’t you  _ stop _ him?”

“He did try,” Ferb pointed out.

“He could have tried harder! Put on his hat  _ before _ we found ourselves in this mess! What, keeping us in the dark was more important than not letting us help an evil scientist? You couldn’t even trust us  _ then _ ?”

Perry looked away. Shrugged. There was no way he could make them understand that he’d put staying with them ahead of the safety of the Tri-State Area, no way they’d forgive him for that.

Phineas buried his face in his hands. “I just… I can’t believe this. I feel like  _ everything _ I know is a lie. Anyone  _ else _ leading a secret life?” He sighed. “Put your hand down, Ferb.”

Ferb lowered his hand, and then pointed at the remote in Perry’s pocket.

Oh, right. Perry tapped it a few times, trying to figure out what was going on with the portal it opened, but this level of science and engineering was far beyond his own understanding.

(He needed a high level of aptitude in science and engineering as an OWCA agent, but he didn’t have the knack the way the boys and Heinz did, he could only do so much.)

“I know some people who might be able to help,” Candace said, once they’d filled her in on their portal problems. “But you have to promise to take your Doofenshmirtz with you when you go. The last thing this dimension needs is  _ two _ Doofenshmirtzes.”

Perry nodded. He had no intention of leaving without Heinz anyway.

“All right, come on.” She stood and led them into one of the tunnels beyond the lair, securing the door behind her.

There was a guard a little beyond the entryway, a short, stout man with heavy jowls and a brown fedora. Agent D. He glared at Perry when he spotted him, until Candace gave him an abbreviation of their interdimensional situation.

D didn’t stop glaring, but he stood down all the same.

Perry sighed. He wanted to get home, wanted to be back where his colleagues trusted him again.

And, with luck, his family too.

-/-

The ‘people’ Candace knew turned out to be Baljeet and Carl, who did most of the equipment development and maintenance for the resistance. Judging by their reactions when he came into the common area of the resistance (Agent Pinky’s old lair, if Perry was any judge- it was hard to tell, but Pinky’s gear had always been Chihuahua themed for some reason), Perry in this dimension was public enemy number one- at least according to the resistance.

While the boys, Baljeet, and Carl got to work on the portal situation, Perry pulled Candace aside for a quiet word.

“I have an idea for how you can get your brothers back,” he said.

Candace raised one eyebrow at him, then looked over at the boys, and back. She moved closer, putting her back to them. “I’m listening.”

-/-

By the time they got the portal opened, Perry and Candace had their plan worked out. Perry come over and scooped up both boys without warning.

“Hey! What gives?”

“Time for you two to get home,” Candace said.

“I thought you said we couldn’t leave without our Doofenshmirtz.”

“Perry and I are going back for him.  _ You two _ are going home.”

“But we wanna help!” Phineas struggled in Perry’s grip. “Hey! Let go!”

“It’s not  _ safe _ ,” Candace said, while Perry chittered a warning. “Perry and I are trained in this kind of thing, it’ll be a lot easier if we don’t have to worry about protecting you at the same time.”

“You’re  _ kidding _ . Are you kidding? Come on! You  _ still _ don’t trust us?”

Perry moved to set them on the other side of the portal- and froze. Candace and Stacy were standing in the backyard, staring. Candace- his Candace- looked from one face to another.

“Uh… what’s going on?”

Perry chittered, and wished he had a hand free so he could shoo them away.

“See Stace? I told you there was a mysterious force at work!”

“That’s not a mysterious force, that’s a… hole in the fabric of reality! Which… is mysterious and possibly a  _ kind _ of force, but not a mysterious force like  _ you _ mean!”

As if to prove her point, Stacy stepped through the portal, moving a stunned Perry aside like so much cheese. Candace followed, and froze in place at the sight of her counterpart.

“Whoah. Is that  _ me _ ? Wait, why is there another me?”

“It’s another dimension!” Phineas said from under Perry’s arm. “This is the you from  _ this _ dimension. She’s really cool.”

“You guys built a portal to  _ another dimension _ ?! Oh, you are SO busted!”

That was his Candace, all right. He chittered to get her attention and passed her Phineas, so he could have his hand free. She held him up automatically, and looked over at Perry.

“Wait, are you already busting them? What are you doing here?”

“Oh, wait’ll you hear this!” Phineas said, anger seeping back into his tone. “He’s a secret agent!”

Perry sighed, and used his now-free hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. This was going opposite the direction he needed it to.

“A secret agent?” Candace looked from Phineas to Ferb, then to Perry and then up to his hat. “Oh. Yeah. That makes sense.”

“What.”

“I mean, I’ve been saying for years that he’s up to some shady stuff. Nice to know I was right.”

“But he lied to us!”

“You  _ built a portal to another dimension _ ,” Candace pointed out.

However her logic followed- Perry wasn’t entirely sure, and neither were the boys, he suspected- they weren’t able to find out. They were interrupted by Baljeet.

“I hate to interrupt this apparent family business, but the portal is closing and I cannot keep it open any longer.”

Perry let out a distressed chitter, and grabbed Phineas from Candace, pushing each boy through the portal. He tried to turn back, to get Stacy and Candace through as well, and was brought back around by Phineas trying to shove past him. He turned to him, letting Agent P slip back into control, and pressed firm hands into Phineas’s shoulders, holding him in place.

Phineas looked mutinous, and was about to protest, when his expression swapped from anger to heartbreak. Behind Agent P, Uncle Perry died a little: he’d never wanted to see that expression on any of his kids, never wanted to  _ put _ it there.

“Fine,” Phineas said, turning away and glaring at the ground. 

At his side, Ferb shot Perry an impassive glare, then turned and put an arm around his brother. 

Perry took a deep breath, and turned back to the other two. He made to gesture Candace and Stacy through the portal again, then broke off as a static whir sounded behind him.

“The portal closed,” Stacy said.

A small explosion sounded.

“...and blew up.”

Perry sighed, then turned around and walked out.

-/-

“Everything okay?” Candace asked, once Perry returned.

Perry nodded, and tossed the helmet he’d grabbed back into the pile. 

He looked over at Candace and Stacy; at some point while he’d been out of the room, they’d been kitted up with armor and gear. His Candace was rolling her hair up and tucking it under a hat, zipping herself into a jumpsuit not unlike the one this universe’s version wore.

“So apparently Candace is like, Danville’s Most Wanted around here,” Stacy said, when Perry pointed at them. “Her face is on every wanted poster in the Tri-State Area. That’s why  _ this _ universe’s Candace obscures her identity for Resistance stuff. So we figured ours should be obscured too. You know, just in case.”

It made an annoying amount of sense, especially since he didn’t have the option of just leaving Candace and Stacy behind. He wished the dimensioninator hadn’t exploded; it would at least be useful to have a backup plan. He looked over at the two Candaces. Apart from the chest plate and ski mask worn by this universe’s Candace, the two were identical: only the hard look behind this universe’s Candace’s eyes set them apart.

(That any version of him could have hurt his girl like that, it didn’t make  _ sense _ . If he hadn’t known them, Perry could understand, but from what Candace had told him, their circumstances had been the same. This Perry had lived with the Flynn-Fletchers for four years, had fallen in love with his kids, had been  _ Uncle Perry, he doesn’t do much _ to them, and then still betrayed them. It wasn’t adding up. Something was  _ missing _ , left out of the equation to obscure the conclusion. But  _ what _ ?)

“All right, let’s go,” the other Candace said. “The sooner we get your Doofenshmirtz back the sooner we get my brothers back.”

-/-

The resistance had repurposed the OWCA tunnels for their own movements; according to Candace, a huge part of their fight was in keeping Perry and his rogue agents out of them. The tunnels would take them to the basement of Doofenshmirtz’s building, and hopefully they could get in that way, without detection.

“So you’re a secret agent,” his Candace said. They were in the front rail car with the other Candace; Perry was trying to keep her and Stacy close to him in case they needed to make a quick exit.

Perry nodded.

“Soo… does that mean all the times I thought you were up to something and said you were acting suspicious and secretive, I was  _ right _ ?”

Perry couldn’t resist the fond smile. Trust her to focus on that, trust her to ignore the implications of his deception. After the boys’ anger, it was refreshing. He nodded, and pointed at her head before giving a thumbs up.

“And you didn’t just learn all those self-defense moves you taught me for writing research?”

He shook his head.

Candace pumped her fist. “ _ I knew it _ ! Oh man, once I bust my brothers for this I am  _ so _ busting you!”

Perry’s eyes widened. He shot her a desperate look.

“Hey, you let Mom think I was crazy for  _ five years _ , don’t pull those platypus eyes on me now!”

Perry rolled his eyes, then glanced over at the other Candace-- she was watching them in her periphery, and as he looked over she looked away, keeping a close eye on the rails. He sighed. He was going to spend the fifteen minutes between all of this being over and his inevitable reassignment holding his kids as tight as he could.

They pulled up outside of the door, and Perry slipped over to press his ear against it. He couldn’t hear anything on the other side; he waved a hand over to the other Candace to join him. She was passing some last instructions to the rest of the group, but when Perry waved them over she put her sunglasses back on and came over. The rest of the group disappeared into the shadows at a motion from Perry.

“Ready?”

Perry nodded, and kicked the door open. The two of them stepped into the dark basement, only to have the light flick on once they were inside. The two Doofenshmirtzes were standing in the other entrance; his Heinz had his hands cuffed, and a gag around his mouth. His hackles rose and he dropped into a ready stance just as Heinz managed to spit out the gag.

“It’s a  _ trap _ , you dummkopf!”

Perry’s gaze flicked around as from the shadows several figures emerged, all as ready to fight as he was.

He’d been expected the Norms, but these figures were agents- former agents. His gaze darted from one to another, taking in so many he recognized- Sergei, Newton, Planty- it looked like the other Perry had talked over the agents he was closest to, somehow.

Coincidentally, also the ones that presented the biggest threat to OWCA’s enemies in  _ his _ reality. No wonder OWCA had fallen. Its best agents had defected.

(Why?  _ Why _ ? One defected agent, he could understand, but how had his other self persuaded the most loyal, the most steadfast agents to swap sides? There was no way their loyalties were stronger to him than to OWCA, what was he missing?  _ What hadn’t he been told? _ )

“Oh come on! Of all the times to just walk into an obvious trap- this is what I have to put up with, you know,” Heinz was saying to his counterpart. Perry kept half an ear on them, focusing the rest of his attention on the agents slowly circling him and Candace. He never thought he’d be so glad to hear Heinz complaining. “I mean, does he  _ try  _ to avoid the traps? No! He just waltzes right in and falls into them! It’s like he  _ wants _ to be trapped!”

In front of him, the other Perry dropped down from the ceiling. At Heinz’s remark, he snorted.

“I know,” Doofenshmirtz said, and directed his attention to Perry. “By the way, thank you for bringing me the resistance leader. I knew you’d come back for  _ this _ schwanzstucker, but I didn’t think you’d bother bringing my most wanted enemy in when you did.”

Perry had approximately enough time to chitter a warning growl at Doofenshmirtz before the agents pounced. He ducked, letting them crash into each other at the last moment, but it wasn’t going to do as much damage as it would on someone else: he’d sparred with them plenty of times, could only imagine his counterpart would do the same. They knew his moves.

Not that this made them better than him, and with Candace there, their attention was divided between them. Newton tried to headbutt him and found himself being dragged aside and flung into Sergei; Manny tried to grab Candace, and Perry tackled him out of the air, managing to punch him in the face before he was grabbed by his own counterpart and born down to the ground

Perry dodged the punch to his head and snarled up at his assailant.

“Can’t believe any version of me would go rogue.”

“You let the boys help your Heinz build an interdimensional portal rather than blow your cover.” The other Perry grunted as a knee connected with his stomach, unable to stop Perry rolling them, pinning him down in turn. He smirked. “Face it, you’d ‘ave done the same in my place.”

Perry dodged another punch, and was hauled aside by Newton, spun and shoved into a wall. He wasn’t able to move in time, and this time went down under the force of Newton slamming his full weight into him. He grunted, wheezed, and was yanked to his feet. Newton had a tight hold on him, pinning his arms at his side and lifting him a good foot off the ground. 

A few feet away, his counterpart had Candace in a headlock. Perry struggled against the arms holding him in place, but Newton wasn’t giving him any leeway, and Perry could only watch helpless as Doofenshmirtz shoved his counterpart aside and approached.

“You’ve been quite the headache for me since your little resistance started,” he said. “Now let’s see who we’re dealing with-”

He grabbed the top of Candace’s ski mask and tugged it off. As it came free, her identity revealed, the other Perry stiffened. Loosened his hold.

“ _ Candace?  _ What are you…”

She slipped out of his grasp and spun around, catching his knee with one swift kick. She skidded over to Heinz’s side as in the momentary confusion, crouching in a ready stance and glaring at the two dictators.

“Where are my brothers?” she demanded.

“Your brothers?” Doofenshmirtz said. “Is that what this is about?”

“Where. Are. My. Brothers.”

“They’re upstairs! Have you seriously been waging war this entire time just to get to your brothers?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Candace said. “I would do  _ anything _ for my brothers.”

“Don’t- of course I understand, I do have a little brother of my own, you know.”

Perry chittered in surprise at the same time Heinz said, “Wait, seriously?”

Doofenshmirtz spared a disdainful glance for his counterpart. “You’re going to tell me you and Roger  _ aren’t _ close in your reality?”

“What? Of course not! He’s a pompous windbag, why would we be close?”

“Definitely see why you haven’t succeeded yet. Anyway, we’ve been looking for you  _ everywhere _ , Candace. Since day one! Do you know how much fretting I’ve had to put up with from this guy? He was so sure you’d just vanished!”

Something clicked in Perry’s head at that.  _ Oh _ . Yes- okay, things were starting to come together. He was still missing pieces of the puzzle, but- yes, okay. That made sense. He looked over at his counterpart. His hands were twitching, his eyes glued to Candace.

Perry looked over at Heinz, and chittered a question mark. Heinz managed to sit up, struggling with his cuffed hands.

“He said he was getting sick of the sound of his own voice,” he said.

Well, Perry couldn’t fault him that.

“Candace-” The other Perry moved closer, slowly, like he was trying not to spook her. 

She whirled on him, glaring. “Don’t.”

“I wasn’t trying to  _ hurt _ you,” he went on. “If we can just talk-”

Perry’s watch beeped, just once. Candace’s eyes slid to him, just barely.

“I don’t talk to traitors and despots,” she said, and grabbed Heinz, shoving him in Perry’s direction. He stumbled and slid across the floor to land practically on his head at Perry’s feet, squawking about mistreatment and complaining about being manhandled the whole time.

Perry exhaled, loosening some of Newton’s grip, and slammed his head back, cracking Newton hard enough in the nose to release his hold in shock. Perry dropped in a crouch over Heinz and murmured, “Get ready”,-

-at the same time the wall blew inward. Perry dropped over Heinz, shielding him somewhat, and hoped Candace was able to dodge the blast herself.

Before the dust had even cleared Perry dragged Heinz to his feet and pulled him in the direction of the hole where the wall had been, where a group of resistance fighters were pouring in, fighting back the rogue agents as Candace and Perry fled, Perry carrying Heinz over his shoulder rather than try to explain anything.

Candace reached the railcar first, standing sentry while the rest of the group piled on. Perry dropped Heinz in the nearest car and joined her, the two pushing it to start it as the last of the rescue group hopped in.

Doofensmirtz was calling for his Norms; they were pouring out of the hole in the wall, being led by the other Perry in a jetpack. There was murder in his eyes, and a quick sweep over the cars told him why: gathered in the group were not one, not three, but two sets of Phineas and Ferbs. One pair were dressed in the aesthetic of the dimension; the other two were very clearly his own.

He sighed. At this point, it might as well just happen. He gave them a stern look and hopped over to stand on the end car where Candace was already fighting the Norms, pulling his blaster from the holster in his shirt. He took aim at the Norms, but there were too many of them: there was only so much he could do, and this universe’s Perry was gunning for him specifically.

He dodged a blast that was too close to his head for comfort, firing in retaliation at the nearest Norm: the arm was sliced off and landed in the car behind them. He hissed in irritation, and fired off a shot at the wall. There was a rumble, and the stone began collapsing, crushing the Norms beneath it and blocking off those behind.

His counterpart managed to dodge- unsurprising- but at least they’d taken care of part of the problem. He fired off another shot, hoping to knock the other Perry out of the air.

“We’ve got a problem!” Isabella called from the front.

Perry chanced a glance behind him and saw what she meant: the blast he’d dodged had set the middle car on fire.

“We have to stop, it’s going to destroy the car!” Isabella called.

“We can’t stop, we’ve still got Perry on our tail!” Candace shouted back.

“Keep going, Isabella!” one of the Phineas’s called. “I have an idea!”

“Head down!” Candace ordered.

“Just keep it on the floor, Isabella!”

“It’s  _ on _ the floor! The fire is slowing us down!”

“Do as he says,” Perry called, firing another shot at his other self. The Norms were starting to veer around the corner again; there was no time for caution or care. They were out of options.

“Almost- got it!” Ahead of them, a massive whir, and when Perry risked looking behind him he saw a huge portal right in their path, big enough to allow the railcar through. “Punch it!”

“It’s punched! It’s  _ been  _ punched! I can’t punch it any harder!”

“We can!” 

Phineas and Ferb- his Phineas and Ferb- hopped over to his car and knelt over the Norm arm. He barely registered them fiddling with the wires before one of them grabbed at his sleeve.

“Lift this,” Phineas said, and Perry caught his intent: he helped them lift the arm into place, and helped them hold it steady while they activated it.

Like a motor on the back of a boat, the rockets from the arm sent them accelerating, lifting off of the rails and launching them through the portal in a scream of metal and Heinz. Perry was the only one looking through the portal when it closed: he saw his counterpart rushing it, only inches away, and then the portal snapped shut and they were free.

The railcar was rumbling. Perry grabbed Heinz by the scruff of his neck and jumped, fleeing with the rest of the group from the inevitable explosion.

They got away, only just, and for a long moment they all stood in a loose circle around the smoking remains of the railcar.

And then the spell was broken by Heinz shouting, “Perry the Platypus! You’re hurt!”

-/-


	3. Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perry's day gets a little better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made the decision to keep things from Perry's point of view only, so when reading explanations of things that happened off-screen remember that some of them may be second-hand retellings and thus not entirely accurate.

-/-

There was a burn across Perry’s shoulder and down his back, likely done by one of the Norms during the chase. He hadn’t even noticed getting hit; in the heat of battle, he rarely did. Fortunately Heinz blew up so much that he kept a lot of burn cream in his lab coat. He sat Perry down rather more forcibly than he looked capable of, threatening to trap him if he argued while digging out gauze and wet wipes from his various pockets.

_ That _ was ten minutes ago. The rest of their party- the alternate Fireside Girls, the two Candaces, Phineases, and Ferbs, and Stacy- were looking around to see where they’d landed, inspecting the railcar for anything salvageable, or resting. The dimension they’d landed in was technicolor and garish, and almost hurt to look at.

Not that Perry was trying. He had his eyes closed, trying to meditate away the pain as Heinz doctored his shoulder. He hadn’t stopped talking the entire time; Perry was finding his voice made a rather useful distraction.

“Why did take off your  _ whole _ shirt?” he was saying. “I mean, you could have just unbuttoned it and shrugged it off one shoulder. It’s like, we get it, you’re jacked! Who are you even trying to show off for? We’re surrounded by  _ toddlers _ , Perry the Platypus.”

“Hey!” Isabella called from somewhere nearby. “We’re eight to ten years old, thank you!”

“Yeah, like I said. And  _ by the way _ -” Here Heinz poked Perry right in his burn, making him hiss in pain. “I’m pretty  _ miffed _ at you for not telling me you had  _ kids _ . Yeah, yeah, I know, ~secret identity~-” Perry couldn’t see, but he got the impression Heinz was making sarcastic jazz hands at that. “-but you don’t have to tell me their name blood type and star sign to tell me they  _ exist _ . I mean, you come and fight me  _ every day _ , when do you spend  _ time _ with them? I made you work  _ Christmas _ , Perry the Platypus! Three years running! I didn’t even care about destroying Christmas, why didn’t you tell me you had kids? That’s a backstory waiting to happen, you know! One minute it’s ‘where’s Perry’ and then forty years later they’re trying to swap Jupiter and Pluto because Uncle Perry never showed up for anything important. That would be  _ your fault _ , Perry the Platypus.”

Over on the remains of the railcar, Phineas popped up from where he was crawling around in its guts. “Hey, why do you keep calling him that?”

“Calling him what? Perry the Platypus? Because it’s his  _ name, _  duh.”

Perry’s eyes shot open. Wait.

“No it’s not. Or- wait-” Phineas gave him an accusing glare. “Is this another secret agent thing?”

Perry chittered, drawing Heinz’s attention back to him.

“What do you mean it’s _not_?”

Perry sighed, and took out his calling card, holding it up and pointing very firmly at the ‘T’ in his name.

“Perry T Platypus, OWCA Agent’. Ohhh,  _ T _ ! Man, all this time I thought it said  _ The _ . And you never corrected me!”

Perry pinched the bridge of his nose, then reached blindly behind him and grabbed Heinz’s nose, yanking him down so they were level.

“Tell me about the other us,” he said.

Heinz snorted, and pulled himself free of Perry’s grip, rubbing his nose while he took a seat beside Perry, setting himself to returning his things to his various pockets.

“So according to  _ them _ , OWCA had designs on his boys- they were a threat level red, apparently? Something about turning the earth’s core to cheese by accident, I’m a little unclear, but OWCA intended to neutralize them.”

Perry let out a growl, and closed his eyes again, breathing out slowly. Okay, last piece of the puzzle. He understood now. Nonetheless, he motioned for Heinz to keep talking.

“He grabbed them and ran off before OWCA could get to them, and went to the other  _ me _ because that was the only person he  _ trusted _ with them, apparently. The only way to deal with the problem- that they could see, anyway- was to take over and disband OWCA.” He shrugged. “I’m sure you can work out the rest.”

Perry nodded. He’d already started to figure that out, but it was nice to have the blanks filled in. It explained how he’d managed to talk the others around, too- their loyalty to OWCA was due to a strong sense of what was right, and if the other Perry had convinced them that OWCA had gone against that sense, they would have no problem throwing in their lot with him, or at least against OWCA.

“At what point did they start boning?” one of the Candaces asked- he thought it was probably his, but his eyes were closed again and he couldn’t say for sure.

“You know, I didn’t ask that? I was going to, and then I thought, ‘Heinz, you do  _ not _ wanna unpack that today’, so, I didn’t. Also, that’s really  _ crude _ and you shouldn’t  _ talk _ like that. You’re what, eleven? Twelve?”

“I’m fifteen!”

Perry opened his eyes to look over at the girls. His Candace and Stacy were helping salvage efforts on the railcar, though they were doing less “salvaging” and more “holding things when told”. He looked around. He’d assumed the other Candace would be joining the alternate Fireside Girls in exploring the area while they waited, but she was actually sitting lookout above them in the branches of one of the technicolor pompom trees surrounding them.

Heinz had finished bandaging him; Perry pulled his shirt and waistcoat back on and left him arguing with his Candace while he shimmied up the tree to sit beside the other one.

“All right, love?”

She glanced over at him, and looked away. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be feeling right now,” she admitted. “I mean- he apparently took my brothers so he could protect them, but he still took over the Tri-State Area, and they aren’t exactly benevolent overlords. But- if he never wanted to hurt my brothers, if he never wanted to hurt  _ me _ \- do I really have any right to be angry anymore?”

Perry considered this, and then nodded. Of course she did- she’d been betrayed. His motives didn’t matter as much as the result, and Perry off his head could think of a hundred ways he could have gone about things better than he had.

“And what about them?” she asked, nodded over at her brothers, who were helping their counterparts with the railcar. “They were perfectly happy with Perry and Doofenshmirtz, and I just kidnapped them and brought them to another dimension. At least they’re having fun right  _ now _ but who knows how long that will last.”

She hauled her legs up to hug her knees to her chest (Perry slipped an arm behind her back to keep her toppling backwards) and watched them.

“By the way, how did you even get here?” Candace- his Candace- asked the boys, interrupting her argument with Heinz and leaving him looking comically stunned at having been cut off.

Perry grinned. He’d always thought it might be funny to inflict Candace on Heinz, as much as the thought of Heinz teaming up with the boys had terrified him.

Ferb held up the portal remote in explanation.

“Ferb grabbed that while Uncle Perry was holding him,” Phineas explained. “We just snuck back into the group and hid while he was screaming into a helmet in the bathroom.”

Yeah, not like they were _relying_ on it for their plan or anything. Well done.

“You know, I’m still a little lost about everything that happened,” Heinz said, folding his arms. “And anyone who was only watching everything unfold from one person’s perspective with limited insight into that person’s knowledge might also be in the dark, so why don’t we all just recap? You know, to fill in some hypothetical audience who only saw what, say, Perry the Platypus saw.”

“Oh, it was really a pretty simple plan,” his Candace said. “Uncle Perry and the other me got evil Doofenshmirtz to tell them where the boy were being held, transmitted over his watch. Then they stalled while we went to get them. Lucky we had my brothers with us, or they wouldn’t have come, but they couldn’t resist learning about other dimensions.” She shrugged. “It actually would have been a great scene in a hypothetical story about everything going on here, so it would suck if that hypothetical story was only being told from Uncle Perry’s point of view.”

“Tell me about it. Things have been pretty interesting on my end too.”

At this point Perry decided the fourth wall had had all it could take and dropped out of the tree, interrupting and effectively ending the conversation.

“So what’s the plan?” the other Candace asked, dropping down beside him.

“Still pretty simple,” Phineas- his Phineas- said, holding up the remote. “We’re gonna go around the long way to get back to our dimension, and then open one more portal to let you guys back into yours.”

Clever. Perry pointed at what had at one time been a railcar and was now assorted gadgetry, cobbled together by two sets of improbable tinkerers. 

“Well we don’t really know what to expect from the other dimensions, so we made some stuff to keep us safe against the unknown.” Phineas scooped up one of the piles. “We have trackers right here, in case we get separated, and armor for those of us who don’t already have some, oh, and an environmental field in case the atmosphere is unbreathable or the ground is acidic or something.”

Which Perry had definitely worried about. He couldn’t resist reaching over and ruffling Phineas’s hair proudly; his boys were so smart, so good at thinking ahead.

For a second, Phineas looked pleased with the praise, then his smile faltered, and he batted Perry’s hand away. He turned to what was presumably the generator for their environmental field. It had backback straps on it, made from the railcar’s seatbelts; he helped Ferb hoist it onto his back.

“Ferb is going to have the generator on him, so everyone make sure to keep close. We can all fit inside of it but it still only has a limited range.”

Perry sighed. All right.

-/-

Traveling clockwise through dimensions seemed like the sort of thing that should be exciting, and probably would have been if there’d been time to explore properly or some indication of how many more dimensions they’d have to go through to get back to their own, or in any situation where the safety of four kids who were definitely his responsibility and another half dozen who’d  _ become _ his responsibility, and also Heinz, was a giant question mark that Perry was lacking options to do anything about.

In fact, the trip very quickly took on a degree of tedium. Ferb would open the portal, Perry would check out the other side, and once he’d deemed it safe, they’d all move through. Ferb would close that portal, then open the next one. Rinse, repeat ad nauseum.

Adding together the tension and the tedium, and it was no wonder that he slipped so easily into Perry the Platypus. Uncle Perry was in the hamper; Agent P made the kids upset. Perry the Platypus, though, he was  _ easy _ . Perry the Platypus could keep one eye on the situation and one ear on Heinz, chittering, smirking, rolling his eyes at the right moments to keep a seemingly one-sided conversation going infinitely.

(Not that Heinz needed encouragement to talk, but it was less grating when Perry directed the conversation instead of letting him just fill the silence with whatever came into his head.)

And, of course Perry  _ noticed _ the looks his kids kept exchanging every time Heinz responded to Perry’s gestures as though he were talking to someone who was talking back perfectly clearly, but that was Uncle Perry’s problem, and Perry the Platypus didn’t have the energy to deal with it right this moment.

“Hey Perry the Platypus, I think I saw you but as an actual platypus in that last dimension!”

Perry stopped walking so suddenly that Heinz ran smack into him, and four of the alternate Fireside Girls ran into  _ him _ .

“Hey, what gives?”

“Heinz…” Perry pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “Do you mean to tell me that you can recognize me, but as a platypus, but you can’t recognize  _ me _ , exactly the same, but without my hat?”

Heinz shrugged. “The platypus was wearing your hat.”

“How do you know it was  _ my _ hat?”

“Why would you be wearing someone else’s hat?”

Perry sighed. Buried his face in his hands and tried not to scream, then straightened up and started walking, poking his head through the new portal that had been opened.

“Are you sure you guys are enemies?” Stacy asked, as the group kept moving. “Because you’re acting more like friends.”

“We’re nemeses,” Heinz said, and Perry chittered an agreement. “We’re a special kind of enemy. What we feel for each other isn’t just your everyday garden variety hatred, it’s  _ loathing _ . You know, like that song.”

Perry slapped his forehead.  _ Why _ did Heinz feel the need to repeatedly imply there was sexual tension between them?

“What song?”

“You know- _the_ song- like- LoaTHING! Unadulterated loaTHING. For your face-”

“Your voice,” Perry sang automatically.

“-your clothing. Although,” Heinz went on, breaking off his singing, “I’m more likely to loathe you when you  _ aren’t _ wearing clothing.”

Perry rolled his eyes, then reached over and took Heinz’s hand, curling it around so he was pointing at himself. Perry couldn’t count how many times Heinz had spent a rather large portion of their fight in his underwear; compared to him  _ occasionally _ losing his shirt, Heinz had no room to talk.

-/-

“Man, Perry the Platypus, your kids sure are something else. I always wondered who was behind those crazy gizmos I kept seeing in town. I mean, usually I assume it’s another evil scientist, but I can’t think of the evil applications of, like, a giant  _ roller coaster _ , you know? Well, I guess you could trap people in it and then not let them off until they gave you control of the Tri-State Area-” He broke off when he noticed Perry glaring at him. “What? Just thinking hypothetically.”

Perry glared for a moment longer, then stepped through the portal and stopped short. They were… home?

“Wow, this dimension looks just like ours,” Heinz said, coming out the portal behind him. “I mean except for the army of killer death robots swarming out of that other portal up there.”

“What?” The kids piled out of the portal around them, Phineas climbing up Perry with practiced ease to get a better look at the roof of Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated in the distance.

Perry slipped his binoculars out of his hat and passed them up.

“Whoah, these are cool-” There was a pause while Phineas looked, and, “Yep, that’s definitely the other Dr. D and Perry. What are they doing in  _ our _ dimension?”

“Oh, sh-- nitzel!” Heinz slapped his forehead. “I completely forgot, the other us, they were going to come take over  _ our _ Tri-State Area. They even got their boys to help with the portal.”

“Yeah, it was fun,” the other Phineas said, and, when his Candace glared at him, added, “What? They didn’t tell us that was what it was for!”

“We have to stop them!” his Candace said. “I don’t want to turn into  _ her _ !” She gestured at her counterpart, and added, “No offense.”

“None taken, I didn’t want to turn into me either.” She uncollapsed her bo and twirled it around. “But don’t worry. We won’t let your dimension go the way of ours. Let’s go, girls.”

The alternate resistance fighters were already drawing weapons; on Candace’s order, they took off in several directions at once. Perry grabbed the other Candace’s hand before she could go too.

“What-”

“Be careful.”

She looked pointedly at the robots, then back at him, and nodded, and, “Thanks, Uncle Perry.”

And then she was gone. Perry turned back to the others, and had just enough time to grab Phineas and Ferb before they took off after the others. They struggled against his grip, in vain.

“Let us go! We have to stop this!”

Perry shook his head and spun them, kneeling in front of them but still holding them in place.

“I need you to go home.”

“But-”

“No buts, bud.” Perry reached into his shirt and took out his locket, snapping the chain and pressing it into Phineas’s hand. “Take this to my room. You’ll get your answers there.”

“But…” Phineas looked down at the locket in his hand, and up at Perry, who was slowly sinking back into Agent P. “All right. Let’s go, Ferb.”

Perry stood while the four ran off, and then looked around. It was just him and Heinz now. Heinz was watching him with folded arms.

“I feel like you just did something really significant that would be completely lost on that hypothetical audience.”

Perry snorted, Perry the Platypus taking over just that easily. “I think they’ll get it. Where’s the other two?”

“They ran off while you were being cryptic and dramatic.”

All right, so that left just the two of them, then. He turned his gaze to Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated. Obviously he had to get to the portal somehow, shut it off and then somehow defeat the army of killer robots- but that was far easier said than done.

“So I’ve got an idea,” Heinz said, and once he had Perry’s attention, “So, before you guys got there this morning, the other me was telling me why he was so much better and more successful at being evil than me. And it’s so- ugh, it’s  _ stupid _ , his backstory is so  _ lame _ , and why should  _ that _ make him better at being evil than  _ me _ ? Ugh, I’m getting off topic.  _ Anyway _ , I think I know how to make him give up. We need to get to my basement.”

Perry nodded, then grabbed Heinz’s hand and pulled him aside as one of the Norms found them and opened fire. He pulled Heinz along, ducking and weaving through the lazers and rubble until they could drop down an OWCA tube to safety.

“Hey, this is pretty useful. We can get to my building in cover!”

Perry nodded. The tunnel would take them to right across the street from Heinz’s building. As they took off in the direction of Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated, his watch started beeping. He answered without slowing down.

“Agent P, we finally reached you! There’s an army of killer robots coming out of Doofenshmirtz’s building.”

“You’re way out of the loop, Francis,” Heinz said behind him. “We’re already working on it.”

“Doofenshmirtz!” Perry held up his watch so that Monogram could see Heinz. “What are you doing in the OWCA tunnels?”

“We needed cover from the robot army  _ invading Danville _ !”

Perry brought his watch back down so that he was in the frame. “Send the agents out to fight the bots,” he said. “There’s about to be a bunch of kids fighting and they’ll need backup.”

“Kids? What?”

“I’ll explain later.” He shut his communicator off, ignoring Monogram’s attempts to demand answers.

Heinz caught up with him. “That necklace was the key to your lair, wasn’t it?”

“Something like that.”

“Smart. Extremely impractical, but smart.”

-/-

The tunnel brought them out across the street from Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated and in the middle of a battle between the Norm army and the kids- every kid in Danville, by the looks of it, weaponizing everything the boys had built that summer, fighting robots to the tune of Love Handel.

Heinz let out a low whistle. “ _ Man _ . Those kids of your sure are something.” He looked over at Perry, catching his proud expression, and said, “Go, they need you more than me. I’ll take care of the other me. Actually, wait-” He reached out and caught Perry’s hand as he turned to go. “Listen. I don’t know if we’ll have a chance to talk before you’re reassigned, and this  _ isn’t _ the place to unpack this, but- okay, it’s like- listen-” He gave a frustrated sigh. “Okay. Here- don’t think I missed the part where you named your secret agent protagonist  _ Ocelot _ . Okay? Just. I  _ caught _ that.”

Their eyes locked, and there was an energy crackling between them: something anticipatory, something that had been building for a long time and was now threatening to spill over. Something in Perry’s mind was saying  _ now, this is the moment, you won’t get another _ and judging by the way Heinz was looking at him, his was saying the same.

And then Perry pulled his hand free and the moment was gone. He saluted and turned, hurrying off in the direction of the battle. His kids needed him. Everything else could wait.

-/-

There was an odd mixture of pride and despair at watching the kids- some of them he’d known for years- fighting the giant robots with creations intended for  _ fun _ . Perry wove through the crowd, helping where he could while searching for the boys.

The agents were in the fray as well. Perry blasted a Norm that was aiming for Newton and found himself fighting alongside the other agent.

Pinky dropped down between them to punch a Norm out of the air. “We’re going to have a lot of reassignments when this is over, my friend.”

Perry shrugged. He knew, and knew it would be his blame, but they could deal with that later. For now- Perry chittered, and pointed up at the robot dog Phineas and Ferb were fighting on top of.

Newton followed his gaze and nodded, dropping down with his hands ready as Perry ran toward him. In a second he’d launched Perry into the air; Perry grabbed the arm of a conveniently placed Norm, and hauled himself onto its back. It struggled against the intruder, but Perry had their number now: he yanked it to the side as hard as he could, crashing it against one of its fellows and leaping to the next before the resulting explosion could harm him.

He’d managed to take out four more in a similar manner by the time he reached the boys. They turned as he landed, both lighting up, and Phineas called out, “Uncle Perry, you made it!”

(Perry had never in his life been so happy to hear the word uncle.)

Perry pointed up at Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated, where the portal still stood and the Norms were still swarming out.

“The portal!” Phineas said. “If we don’t close it it won’t matter how many of the bots we destroy, they’ll still keep coming!”

Perry nodded, and held out a hand to Phineas in offering, taking out his grappling hook with the other.

Phineas nodded. “All right. Ferb, can you hold everything down on the ground while we take care of the portal?”

Ferb flashed him a thumbs up.

“Okay- let’s go, Uncle Perry.”

-/-

On the roof, the other Doofenshmirtz and Perry were overlooking the city while the swarm of Norms continued to pour out over them. Perry motioned for Phineas to duck down behind the overturned table with him- had it only been this morning that he’d been trying to stop Heinz with  _ slapstick _ ? He shook that thought away. That was for later.

Perry peeked around the table, trying to gauge some kind of plan, and then ducked back around quickly. The other Perry was gone- where’d he- Perry’s gaze darted around, but before he could lay eyes on his counterpart a pair of hands grappled him from above and he was yanked over the table, thrown aside.

He dropped into a roll and came up launching into a tackle, taking the other Perry down for round two. He shoved his counterpart facedown into the couch, digging an elbow into his back, and caught Phineas’s attention. He pointed at the portal generator.

Phineas followed his gesture and nodded, taking off in that direction and leaving Perry to battle his counterpart.

-/-

Where was Heinz? Perry hit the ground under the weight of his counterpart, and rolled to toss him aside, and froze. Doofenshmirtz had Phineas; he wasn’t hurting him but he had a pretty firm hold. Doofenshmirtz turned to his Perry.

“Man, can’t believe any version of you would bring the kid into a war zone,” he said. “Would you hold still? I told you, I’m not going to  _ hurt _ you.”

“And I told  _ you _ -“ Phineas wiggled in the grip holding him, struggling to break free, “-that you  _ can’t have this dimension _ !”

_ Where was Heinz _ ? He’d said he had the solution- had he bailed? But- no- Perry had to trust him. He looked around, trying to find some way of getting Phineas free-

He hit the ground.  _ Hard _ . He heard a crack, and for a second his vision swam before the other Perry was standing over him, heel digging into his sternum. Perry quelled the panic rising in him. Come on, there had to be  _ something _ , some weakness of his own he could exploit in his counterpart- come  _ on _ , he was  _ Perry fucking Platypus _ , his whole  _ thing _ was improvisation-

He tilted his head back, trying to ease the pressure on his skull where he’d just cracked it, and his eyes landed on a comically large beach umbrella lying open in the corner- exactly at the space where he would have crashed in this morning, if he hadn’t been running late.

He suppressed a smirk. Oh Heinz, you beautiful creative lunatic. He grabbed the other Perry’s shoulders and flipped him, tossing him at the obvious trap- and allowed a satisfied smirk when it snapped closed around him. He hauled himself into a kneeling position to catch his breath, watching the other struggle against the hold for a second before he turned and headed off to get to Phineas.

Doofenshmirtz had seen this. He looked baffled.

“What the- who just leaves a comically large beach umbrella  _ lying around _ like that? Where did he even get that from? And why can’t you just get out, you’re  _ Perry T. Platypus _ , honestly, schatz, you’re losing your touch- ow!”

Phineas, in the confusion, had hauled off and cracked the back of his head against Doofenshmirtz’s face. Doofenshmirtz dropped him to rub at his nose, just in time to go down under a full body tackle from Perry.

Perry held him down with one hand, with the other pulling back and punching him hard in the face.

“OW- ow- cut it- I could use some HELP over here-!”

Behind them, there was a snap, and a crack, and Perry didn’t have to look to know the other him was free. He turned, ready to intercept his attack, at the same time there was a resounding  _ crash! _ and a squawk of, “Ha HA! Back-up trap!”

He stood, dragging the other Doofenshmirtz up with him. Heinz was standing beside a cage containing the other Perry, holding a remote in one hand and gloating openly. Perry grinned, half-relieved and half-proud, and came over to join him, dragging Doofenshmirtz behind him.

Heinz met his grin with one of his own. “Nice work, Perry the Platypus. Here, hold this-“ He handed the cage remote to him and turned to his counterpart. “Now as for  _ you _ , I have something  _ for _ you!”

He reached triumphantly into his coat at that, and took out- a toy train?

What?

“...Choo-choo?”

“I told you, I never lost it,” Heinz said. “It was in my basement, took me for _ ever _ to find.”

Perry chittered, and sagged against the cage as the other Doofenshmirtz took the offered train with an almost tender awe.

“I feel,” he said slowly, trying to remind his brain what words were and how to use them, “I feel like that’s another thing that’s going to be lost on our hypothetical audience.”

Heinz shrugged. “Apparently living as a lawn gnome, being disowned and raised by ocelots, and blatant favoritism on the part of my parents wasn’t enough to make me truly evil enough to take over the Tri-State Area, but losing one lousy toy train was. Go figure.”

Perry side-eyed him fondly. He suspected there was far more under the surface that had led his Heinz to be petty and obstinate and selfish but ultimately incapable of the true evil that the other Doofenshmirtz was, but he wasn’t going to go into why that was. Not here, not now. Not with an audience.

Doofenshmirtz, meanwhile, was cuddling the toy train to him, chattering about his loss of evil motivation and how he was going to give up his evil ways, turn over a new leaf, try living on the side of good perhaps.

So  _ easy _ . The world swam; the adrenaline that had been driving Perry since this morning was wearing off. He let his grip on the other Doofenshmirtz loosen and sagged more, only to have Heinz’s arm slip under his, supporting his weight against him.

“I gotcha, big guy. Deep breaths, there you go. We’ve still got to take care of clean up.”

“Oh, right,” Doofenshmirtz said, shifting his train to one hand and patting his pockets with the other. “I’ve got the remote for the bots here somewhere- huh-”

“Is that it?” Heinz asked, pointing over to the table beside the portal. There was a remote with two buttons sitting there.

“Yeah, it is!”

Beside them, a clang, and the other Perry was free. Doofenshmirtz turned to him.

“Oh good, you’re out. We’re giving up, Schatz, I don’t really feel  _ evil _ anymore.”

The other Perry chittered coldly. “After everything? _I_ _do_.”

He turned and dashed for the remote, getting a headstart before Perry could disentangle himself from Heinz. On the other side of the balcony, Phineas was sprinting for the same: he wasn’t fast enough, the other Perry was going to beat him-

Just as the other Perry’s fingers brushed it, a sneakered foot came out of nowhere and kicked it aside. It skidded across the table and into the waiting hands of the other Ferb. The other Phineas jumped down from the table to stand beside his brother, glaring up at their uncle.

“Phin…”

“You  _ lied _ to us,” the other Phineas said, fury and defiance in his face and stance. “We helped you take over the Tri-State Area and we helped you rule it and we helped you fight the resistance and you  _ lied to us the whole time _ !”

“I was trying to protect you-”

“By hurting everyone else?!”

For a beat, a breathless beat, Perry felt pity for his counterpart: he had done terrible things, but Perry could not be truly sure that he wouldn’t do the same. But- all the same- he glanced over at his Phineas.

No. No he wouldn’t. 

He would find another way.

“You must have known we wouldn’t be okay with these things,” the other Ferb said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have lied.”

And pressed a button on the remote.

The fighting stopped. In an instant the Norms all froze in place, and then--

\--music. Nineties-esque techno-beat music blasted from concealed speakers on their frames and they began to- dance-

“You installed a dance button?” Heinz asked.

“ _ I _ didn’t. The boys did. Said it was a failsafe in case they went rogue.”

“Oh. Smart.”

“Right?”

_ Right _ , Perry thought. Any reality, any version of themselves, his kids were amazing.  _ I could have told you that _ .

-/-

Unsurprisingly, the robots self destructed at the end of the dance number.  _ That _ felt very Heinz; clearly the Norms had been a joint effort overall. Perry cuffed his unprotesting counterpart and the other Doofenshmirtz, and had them ready to go by the time the other Major Monogram came through, back in his uniform.

Perry allowed a grim smile to touch his features.

“Appreciate the assist, alternate Agent P,” Monogram said, saluting. “I’ll take it from here.”

He reached for the other Perry, but Perry pulled him back, out of reach, and gave Monogram his stoniest look.

“You knew why he went rogue,” he said. “You didn’t tell me.”

“Well of course not! I couldn’t risk you joining him! No, better this way.”

Perry bared his teeth in a snarl. “Was it worth it? Trying to neutralize a couple of  _ kids _ ? Were the results worth the price of admission?”

Behind them, the sound of several pairs of feet landing on the balcony. 

“No. No they weren’t.”

The other Candace and her resistance fighters. Perry smirked at Monogram, locking eyes with his as he passed his counterpart over to Candace.

“Hmm. Well this is awkward…” Monogram rubbed the back of his neck. “So, uh… hmm.”

Ignoring him, effectively dismissing him, the other Candace turned to Perry.

“Thank you,” she said. “You’ve done our dimension a great service. We won’t forget you.”

“Neither will we!” the other Phineas said, and Perry felt two solid shapes collide with his legs.

He looked down to see the other Phineas and Ferb hugging him, and reached down to ruffle both of their hair.

“You guys should get going,” his Phineas said, he and their Ferb coming up to join them.

(Perry became dimly aware that the roof was becoming crowded with kids and agents, but for the moment he couldn’t bring himself to care.)

“Thanks again for everything,” Candace said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do now that this is all over, but…” She looked down at her brothers, who had hurried over to hug her instead. Her shoulders sagged with relief. “I think we’ll figure something out.”

-/-

They smashed the dimensionator, once everyone was back in their dimension. It was for the best, they all agreed. No need to risk it. And then everything was over, except-

-there was still one last end to tie.

“This is so great, Uncle Perry!” Phineas said, climbing up to sit on his shoulder. “Just think of all the fun we can have now that we know the truth!”

“Yes, I’m sure the next fifteen minutes will be amazing,” Monogram- his Monogram, thankfully- said, he and Carl finally joining them. “After that, Agent P will go away forever, and you’ll never see him again.”

“What?!”

A pair of arms clasped around Perry’s legs, another around his head; he reached up to steady Phineas, reached down to hold Ferb, and gave Monogram his most pleading look.

“Yes, now that Agent P’s cover has been blown, he’ll be reassigned to a new host family in a new division, with a new nemesis-”

“Hold on!” The squawking protest sounded behind them; they turned to see Heinz elbowing his way back to the center of the group. He shoved aside an unprotesting Newton and jabbed his thumb at himself. “Perry the Platypus is _my_ nemesis! You can’t just go _reassigning_ _him_ like that!”

“Yeah, and he’s  _ our _ uncle!” Phineas added. “He belongs with us.”

“You know he’s not  _ really _ your uncle, right?” Monogram asked.

“The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,” Ferb said. “He is our uncle if we  _ say _ he is our uncle.”

Oh  _ god _ these  _ kids _ . Perry tightened his hold on them, staring down Monogram. Willing for some loophole to present itself.

“Look, this isn’t any easier for  _ us _ ,” Monogram was saying. “He’s our best agent! You think we  _ want _ to lose him? But our hands are tied. It’s too dangerous to have families in the loop.”

“Man.” Phineas sagged on Perry’s shoulder. “I guess this is why you kept your secret, huh?”

Perry nodded, but his gaze had traveled to Carl, who had his chin in one hand, staring thoughtfully at the floor.

“Sir!” he said suddenly. “I have an idea! There might be another way- what about Dr. Doofenshmirtz’s amnesianator?”

“Amnesianator? I don’t remember building an amnesianator.”

“A memory reset?” Monogram said, ignoring him. “I suppose that is an option. Of course, everyone would have to agree- can’t go wiping people’s minds without their permission just to neutralize a threat. We’re the  _ good _ guys. We couldn’t possibly do something so unethical.”

“So our options are to forget the greatest day ever, or lose Uncle Perry for good?” Phineas asked, looking around at his friends.

(Perry didn’t. He couldn’t quite bear to see the sure indecision in their eyes.)

“We’ll have lots of good days,” Ferb said. “But we only have one Uncle Perry.”

A resounding chorus of cheers and agreement went up from the others, from all around Perry.

Oh.

_ Oh _ .

Perry turned, looking around at everyone, seeing no dissent in their eyes- except-

Heinz shouted when Perry shot a hand out to grab him, pulling him back before he could sneak away. He carefully set Phineas onto the ground so that he could hold onto Heinz more effectively.

“Aww, man,” Heinz said, and at an expectant stare from the others, sighed. “Oh, fine, whatever. I guess I’ll get amnesianatored too. Sure.”

-/-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They passed through canon at one point but the art style was different so they knew it wasn't theirs.


	4. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of a very long day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: this epilogue is actually one of the earliest planned scenes for this series, and is in fact one of the reasons I chose to use Precipice as the turning point for their relationship.

-/-

Trucks arrived quickly to transport the kids over to OWCA headquarters. Perry wasn’t the only one whose cover had been blown; it looked like half the division was looking at the same choice he was.

(A few feet away from where Perry was holding his kids tight, Pinky was trembling while he told Isabella all the things he wasn’t able to say to her as just the guy who rented the room over her garage; he caught Perry looking and flashed him a thumbs-up.)

“I’m really glad we got to meet Agent P,” Phineas said. “Even if we have to forget everything, at least we got to spend one day with you. You’re the best uncle we could ask for.”

“And we have multiple actual uncles, so that’s saying something,” Candace added, as Perry wrapped his kids in a one-armed hug.

“And I’m glad I got to meet your kids,” Heinz said. They all looked over at him. He huffed. “What? I’m not  _ trying _ to butt in, I can’t  _ go _ anywhere.”

He held up his hand in reminder. They’d handcuffed him to Perry just to make sure he didn’t try escaping again.

Perry chittered, and gave his kids a pleading look. They glanced between each other, and Candace smirked.

“No, I’ve gotcha- come on guys, let’s go talk to Major Monogram. I bet he’ll love to listen to all of your questions about his spy organization.  _ Come on _ -” She pulled them both over to Monogram and away from Perry and Heinz.

Perry glanced sheepishly at Heinz, and then turned his eyes to the floor, and then to their hands as Heinz’s slipped over his.

“I guess we won’t have that chance to unpack everything after all,” Heinz said. “I’m, uh.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m glad that I- I mean- listen, I know I’m going to forget all of this and  _ you’re _ going to remember so- so I don’t really know- I mean-” 

Perry was unable to mask his fond look entirely while Heinz danced around trying to find the words he needed. When he couldn't, Perry grabbed Heinz’s face, dragging him into a kiss- sloppy, rough; it was hasty and ill-coordinated and over far too soon.

But when they’d parted, Perry leaned his forehead on Heinz’s shoulder, chittering a soft apology. 

Between them, Heinz laced their fingers together, and brought his free hand up to rest on the back of Perry’s neck.

“Yeah. Don’t worry. I gotcha, big guy.”

-/-

Once Monogram had all of the kids lined up in front of the Amnesianator, Perry dragged Heinz over and unlocked their handcuffs.

“I guess I’ll be seeing you,” Heinz said. “Or… well, you know.”

Perry gave him a fond smile and saluted, then hurried over to stand beside Monogram and Carl.

“Hit it, Carl,” Monogram said, and the world briefly became a brilliant flash--

-/-

Perry pulled his bike up outside of Heinz’s building and helped Heinz dismount. His helmet off, Heinz turned to him, gesturing and invitation for him to come on up.

“It was sweet of you to give me a ride home, Perry the Platypus, but I still don’t understand what I was doing at OWCA headquarters to begin with. The last thing I remember was getting my inator ready, and then everything is a blur, and then I was at OWCA.”

Perry took Heinz’s hand and brought it up to his head, where a large goose egg was forming from one of their fights earlier.

“Oh, I hit my head in our fight.” He brightened. “Well, then it was sweet of you to bring me back to OWCA to get medical attention.”

Perry shrugged and followed Heinz into the elevator. He swayed a little on the spot as they rose the many stories to Heinz’s floor and then into the penthouse.

Heinz side-eyed him as he let him in. “You’re dead on your feet, Perry the Platypus. Must have been a pretty intense fight- here, sit down for awhile, I don’t want you driving like this.”

It was so absentmindedly sweet that Perry didn’t resist, letting Heinz guide him over to the couch and sit him down rather forcibly.

“Do you think you could take off tomorrow?” Perry said suddenly. “I really need to spend some time with my kids.”

Heinz froze, stilled, back to Perry, and for one moment Perry wondered if he’d made a mistake, and then Heinz turned to him with a smile. “You have  _ kids _ , Perry the Platypus?” His smile faltered. “Wait, are you allowed to tell me about them?”

Perry shrugged. “Don’t have to tell you their name blood type and star sign to say they exist.”

“I guess that’s true,” he said, coming to sit beside Perry. “I can take off, sure. Don’t want to go creating any backstories just because you’re never around. Can you tell me anything about them? No? That makes sense. Frustrating as heck, but it makes sense.”

He kept talking, filling in the silence, but Perry wasn’t catching anything he was saying. His voice was muffled and far away; the world was a washed-out-purple blur. His eyes burned from trying to keep them open. Perry had the vague thought that he should be heading home soon, that his family would miss him, but his limbs had grown heavy and he couldn’t muster the motivation to try moving them.

Heinz was right beside him, still: a warm, solid, anchoring presence. It would be so easy to just--

     slip

               sideways

\--an arm looped around his shoulders and he knew he could, just for a little while, set down the weight that Agent P and Uncle Perry carried, and, just for a little while, be Perry the Platypus. He closed his eyes, and yawned, and drifted off to the sound of Heinz’s endless chatter.

-/-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there's the end.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this trip; the next one, Singularity, should be up within the week if my pace holds up. Singularity is where we get into the three stories that I started this series to be able to write (Singularity, Equilibrium, and Proximity) and they will be full of delicious delicious pining as Perry just. fucking. _refuses_ to approach his feelings for Heinz.
> 
> See y'all soon.

**Author's Note:**

> Like this? Want to see more? Interested in seeing me brainstorm this verse in real time? Want terrible jokes, mediocre art, or a verse where Stacy becomes an OWCA intern? Then head over to tumblr and hit me up @grifalinas!


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